neto, unwilling to be so immediately repentant for acts of logical strategy, has accepted that the mer's activities will remain secret. he knows that nova will never fully betray him and ikon, altho he does have an idea that nova may somehow become confused by the mer's ancient dialect. there is a curious sort of stalemate which has arisen in relation to the mer. one which leaves the whole ship in a tense environment. what nova lacks in skill, may, however, be forever changed by the addition of the mer's newly acquired hathor. this little piece of sentient technology immediately takes neto and ikon's attention. imagine two random humans suddenly being gifted with information that makes wyk and solarion's whole libraries on alanor look like kindergarten learn to read books.

turning one's back on the mer is never a smart choice. denying the mer some obviously deserved company, praises and general speeches of undying allegiance, may prove to be a costly mistake. neto knows this in the back of his mind. in fact, his feelings for the mer have become increasingly accepting as he comes to realize that she is inextricably part of the final mission. in fact, neto has completely accepted that in order to complete the mission, he may have to turn navigational controls over to the mer at some point. what he needs to do is figure out how to trust this inherently unstable creature with nova's delicate circuitry. if only she understood. if only she could comprehend that nova is neto and ikon's home. it has been for almost their whole lives. since ikon was a baby and neto was old enough to start building her. the idea that she feels she can storm aboard and take nova over infuriates neto. he finds it hard to relate to the pirate ethik. but he is a diplomat. the fact that the mer acts impulsively without caring for anyone else who might be involved fills neto witha kind of anger, but he ultimately forgives her.

she is so predictable that if she was to hear any of this dialogue, she would for sure go ballistic and head off into space on her own, claiming she does not need anyone's help. especially not from some lowly humans who have no idea how to act in the dreamworld. and its probably true...but people like that always end up lonely for some reason. they become outcasts not because they are bad, but because they cannot connect. it takes a real hero to become part of a collective mission. solo heoes who deem everyone else subpar have very few allies. i'm sure she;d say " the mer has all the allies she needs!". somehow it seems way less fun to imagine that one person saves the day, but it tuly seems like the mer is out to get all the treasure, all the glory and none of the blame if it goes wrong. neto attempts to handle this kind of thing in his mind. he's a libra. doesnt seem fair.

neto wonders if she will do anything that really makes her endearing or if they are destined to be at odds with each other for the entire mission. some level of social evolution might be welcome. he keeps thinking on her criticisms of him. fair enough. maybe he isnt fun enough, maybe he is too serious. but the rest of the mer babble is bullshit and she needs to realize it. something will have to happen to make her realize that everyone is now linked together. neto and ikon never vy for control of nova. they never consider their own agenda to be superior to the others. there's always council. its too bad the mer isnt down with negotiating or even talking civilly. mer's way or the highway. walk the plank ye scurvy beggar.

and what's with the double standard on nympha? as neto turns it over in his mind, it seems as though the goddess, patron saint of nympha is now the almighty mer. the difference is that neto highly doubts she will go back and encourage the nymphs to be as powerful as her. in fact neto imagines that she will probably complain about all the pirate mer wannabes who are nowhere near as cool and powerful as the mer herself. hmf.

he thinks back to when they first met. him a prisoner on her boat. imagine if he had waited till the opportune moment and drugged her, stolen her boat and taken off. he never would have even thought to do that. maybe he is naive. too trusting. too awed by elvish beauty and knowledge. even the mer is awe inspiring in her impossible way. he almost wishes he had opted for that other ending. the one where he and the mer live on earth for the rest of their lives sailing and experiencing all of gaia's secrets. an unmatched planet in a galaxy of planets. he would have ached for space. he would have heard this call and felt as tho no planet was large enough. now they are both here, and earth seems like an impossible dream, so many lightyears ago.

strange that all these elves, with the possible exception of psilli and solarion, have gotten so out of hand and socially warped. neto and ikon may be humans but they are friendly. they havent fallen prey to the "we are elves and are therefore superior to all of you unevolved lifeforms" crap. so far the elves have set up no end of challenges for each other. sure they have wickedly created teams, tribes and networks, but their contempt of other races and outrageous superiority complex places them in a precarious galactik situation. eventually the hybrids become spacefaring. the elves are no longer gods of unthinkable powers. soon enough there are terrans like neto , ikon and guradian who are figuring stuff out quicker than they are. everyone evolves.

(note: the elves are the indisputably coolest beings in the galaxy. their noncorporeal selves are unimaginably cool. everyone wants to be an elf. why are they so stuck up?)

to top all of this off, neto has caught a space flu, sniffling and sneezing. this is bound to make him slightly irritable if not terribly frustrated with his lack of ability to function at top efficiency. most likely a residual effect from the swimming they had to do when the transporter shard malfunctioned on nympha. man, that last trip to nympha really sucked. who would have thought they'd make him walk the plank. rogue nymphs. he maybe should say it serves him right, but the mer is just a good person to blame right now.

neto: (to aquius). so, let me get this straight. you are a sentient technological lifeform which encases the entire known elvish database?

aquius: that is correct

ikon: uh...the entire database?

aquius: because all shards of current elvish tech are fractals of the original mainframe, technically every shard has the entire database. i am extremely, if not perfectly proficient at accessing any level of information and am able to translate this information into any known dialect. i do, however, require inquiries into ancient info to be accessed using the original tongue. it is a search protocol and encryption mechanism i was born with. i can, however, tell you all known current data on elvish space travel. in your own slang yo!

ikon and neto look at each other with absolute incredulity. this makes up for anything the mer has ever done to them.

aquius looks at them with his huge eyes.

aq: i can tell from your dna that both of you have elvish genetiks altho you are not 100% pure blood. hybrids. i detect you are terran. this is the experimental planet in kinich ahau. you should not yet have post warp crystal technology.

ikon: ya. we're bastards. both of us. but hey...we're nice guys. met a few elves along the way.

aq: you are both sufficiently elvish for me to have the highest level authority to clear you for access to teleri.

neto: wha...no way. that's mer's ancient history stuff. thats the real planet that the holgram grid was protecting. thats the planet that everyone, including the lamighty elves, has been searching for for millenia.

ikon: the myth is that there is a treasure beyond reckoning there. mer will undoubtedly be interested in that. perhaps we can work with her.

aquius. i find her impulsiveness and manners to be irritating. i do not remember elves being so unreasonable.

neto: she's not your average elf. but i am starting to see that she is incredibly powerful and important. look. we have to work with her. altho you are a hathor, which until today was a mythical impossibility, i don't know if you have the current information that has been generated since you were offline at the temple. you also don't have any of the sentient archive yet. this is the special terran shard division. the problem is that teleri, according to these charts, is over 25,000 lightyears into the delta quadrant. even the elentari would take 20 years to get there. (notation: check temporal distances and locate them with a fixed trajectory) we need some seriously advanced technology to cruise that kind of space. i know it exists. sindhavatar can cover that kind of ground, but we're just humans and some rag tag renegade elves on the run.

aquius: your friend guardian and your elvish friend renzo seem to posess necessary technology. i have taken the liberty of assimilating all relevant data you have stored on nova. i hope you do not mind. it is interesting how much has changed in space travel. my builders did not travel in ships like this. they moved thru portals created by thought.

neto: well. we're just human halfbreeds. we travel in crystals. you should see half the human fleet. they travel in metal alloys.

aquius: all species follow a similar trajectory. the elves themselves once were all planet bound.

a small black creature catches their attention

neto: haha...hey there merlin

merlin, has strayed from mer's corner and struggled his way up the stairs to the bridge. he is followed closely by nim.

nim: sorry neto..they uh..tend to climb out of their box. they havent quite figured out how to send. you can tell him he's bad. they have to learn where they can and cant go.

merlin looks up at neto and licks his hand.

neto: it's totally ok nim. altho i recommend that you steer clear of deck 5. the cat from the pleiades pretty much owns that level. she will not be fucked with. hey..glad to see you by the way. congratulations on a fine litter.

nim: apologies for the mess they make. i will make sure that all is cleaned up. hopefully the mer will be cooperative and help

neto: is she going to sulk and pout and scheme and try to steal one of the pods again? she did a number on beta. wo. did she try and take her underwater?

nim: it was actually the arda base folk. they put her online using something they call a "spoon". and used her to go to the other moon where the distiller eleves make this ridiculous wine from the local berries. i guess they got into a bit of a tangle in a jungle sector. we cleaned her off as best we could. the mer actually piloted beta well. in fact, i believe mer made some modifications to the navigational array that actually have real relevance.

neto: i don't doubt it. a wondrous and difficult character is the mer. as too the nim, for she must take care of an entire pack. feel free to replicate anything you need.

nim: deep bows.

mer looks up from her corner with suspicious eyes. neto hands merlin over to nim who nuzzles him back down to where the mer is at.

neto:(to ikon and aquius). i have an idea for the mer. and i think it it will help us with the problem with nova not being 100% compliant. we need to set up a separate navigational array on a partition and give mer complete access to put all of her crystal online.

ikon: are you insane? she LOVES gnomes. neto. if she goes online for any length of time we will be cleaning up gnomes for years. not even fen is that skilled.

aquius: given mer's lack of trustability when not in complete control of the vessel, neto's plan does seem to have a level of diplomatik relevance. if you can seal off a partition on your system, i can ensure a link with the mer that will allow me to access the most ancient of my coding. i do not believe that you have adequate grasp of original elvish dialects to retrieve the precise coordinates. but she can.

neto: right. mer is going toing to cast trajectories. sigh

ikon: and neto is going to worry himself sleepless and miserable i bet.

neto: nono. see i 've given up. aquius has helped me see. in fact i say whatever. let the mer direct nova. nova is not stupid. she's smarter than both you and i..she is you and i plus 30 million terraquads of data we'll never even have the time to assimilate. why not? maybe what we need is someone who has no clue what they are doing navigate. what better way to avoid detection? this is perfect. but...in order to get her to do it, i think we have to let her sneak in and believe that she is controlling the ship behind everyone's backs

ikon: this plan worked for her trip to cellion. what makes you think she won't think we are trying to dupe her?

neto: my brain hurts trying to use reverse reverse reverse psychology. merlogik is so silly it just might work. speaking of which. i wonder what will happen when she actually uses psilli's shard.

ikon: well aquius. before the mer turns the ship into a ridiculous barrage of improbable trajectories, what do you say we download a few terraquads of data? i'll start building shard modules.

aq: i am at your service.

neto/ikon: in unison..and i yours.

neto: now lets see if the the mer wants to play too. o, and holy shit. we have to check up on guardian. we need rezin! we need guardian here to meet aquius. o man...guardian is going to flip out.